Public support for shuttle grows with its retirement

A poll conducted just after space shuttle Atlantis by IBOPE Zogby International found overwhelming support for the program.

Among the questions asked:

NASA has just completed its last space shuttle mission. Do you agree or disagree with the decision to end space shuttle missions?

Agree 33%

Disagree 59%

Not sure 8%

Overall, do you believe the space shuttle was a worthwhile use of government resources?

Yes 74%

No 13%

Not sure 13%

How concerned are you that other nations might surpass the U.S. in their ability to explore space?

Very or somewhat concerned 60%

Not very or not at all concerned 38%

Not sure 3%

The company claims the poll of 2,297 people is accurate to within 2.1 percent. If so, nearly three-quarters of the public view the $200 billion shuttle program as a worthwhile investment. A similar poll by Pewearlier this year found a strong majority of Americans also felt the same way.

A winner in the public eye. (NASA)

It’s a fitting legacy for your program that when you’re done the public appreciates what you’ve accomplished.

41 Responses

I am a space nut loving space exploration as well all it brings and the space program has brought us some valuable technology. However we are no longer able to support this kind of lavish spending. It is time the space program be scrapped. We are 15.5 trillion dollars in debt. One trillion is a million dollars a day, every day for 2739 years and we are 14.5 times that in the whole. We are about to default on our debt and lose our standing in the world and if not now within the next couple years it will happen. We need to do away with all unnecessary spending and the space program is one of them.
If we get our debt under control then we can re-vist these ventures, but for now it needs to be totally shut down in the area of space exploration.

… We need to do away with all unnecessary spending and the space program is one of them.
If we get our debt under control then we can re-vist these ventures, but for now it needs to be totally shut down in the area of space exploration.
–
Hmmm…

Contrary to being a self-proclaimed ‘space nut’, It does seem that you would be perfectly happy watching our technological lead vanish, and be overtaken by the Japanese, Indians, and Russians; you are using the same argument that Neo-Luddites have been using for decades, to justify their anti-space stance:“We can’t afford it!”

Will you witness the Chinese Flag being planted on the Moon and wonder ‘How did they afford to do that?’

You realize that for the cost of air-conditioning our troops in those illegal occupations of choice we are currently involved in, we could fund the entire NASA budget?
You doknow that, don’t you?

‘If we get our debt under control’?IF…???
That’s a mighty big word, and you know in your heart of hearts that it ain’t gonna happen, not if you have been paying one iota of attention to the events in D.C.

It’s not so simple to ‘temporarily’ shut it all down, and then start it back up later, either. Infrastructure deteriorates; experienced people are lost forever, and you end up spending more starting over from scratch than you would have if you had just bothered to keep it running in the first place.

While there is a long and still growing list of things President Obama will be remembered for, I think that, around here at least, killing off NASA will have legs at the top of that list. If you look at his proposed budgets, NASA is the only area of federal spending he actually cut. Everywhere else, he spent more money. Seems pretty blatant. And political. And petty. And spiteful. And unpresidential.

Don’t let facts get in the way of your partisan hatred. It was Bush43 who closed down the Shuttle program (and who tried to shut down the ISS). And, as for “defunding NASA”, the numbers tell a different story:
NASA funding under Bush43 (in millions of current dollars):
FY2002: 14,405
FY2003: 14,610
FY2004: 15,152
FY2005: 15,602
FY2006: 15,125
FY2007: 15,861
FY2008: 17,833
FY2009: 19,168

The average funding under Obama is higher than the average under Bush43, and the lowest funding under Obama is higher than all but one year in Bush43′s administration. (Please remember that fiscal years start in October and are named after the year that they end.) Data from US Budget office:http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy12/xls/BUDGET-2012-TAB-4-1.xls

“Stuff into orbit” Yeah, right. When the Chinese or Russians start planting weapons in space and we cannot even get off the ground, then you can thank Mr. Obama.
How can we patrol the orbital area of this planet without being able to get there? Yes, I mean patrol the area and get rid of any threat to this country.

Put the blame where it belongs: Bush43. Bush43 cancelled the Space Shuttle’s replacement back in 2001; if he had not done so, then we would be flying a craft that was safer and less expensive. Bush43 killed the Shuttle program. Bush43 opted to go with “Apollo on steroids”, which cost more and was less safe than the Shuttle.

“…$200 billion shuttle program …” of which (half?) of that amount is invested in hardware, land and buildings, which will now sit idle until it is obsolete or returns to the original component elements of carbon and silicone. El Stupido.

Instead of making the shuttle a free attraction at several museums we should sell the shuttles to those that want to keep them flying. Then they will have the rights to launch and landing pictures and little else.

Wait what? Am I the only one who remembers the test flights of commercial space craft early in the Bush administration? 2003 – 2004. Drop the partisan poltical griping guys – shuttle program was winding down before Obama was even a senator.

The Columbia accident in 2003 triggered the serious debate about the future of the Shuttle program. Options ranged all the way from continuing the Program indefinitely and completing the Space Station to immediately cancelling the Shuttla and letting the half-completed Station fall into the ocean.

The decision the Bush administration reached was to continue the Shuttle through completion of the Station, and then cancel it. Meanwhile a replacement system would be developed which would continue U.S. access to the Station after the Shuttle was terminated AND allow exploration beyond earth orbit – to the Moon and beyond. In addition, this replacements system would cushion the blow to the the NASA and contractor Shuttle workers by providing potential jobs in the new program (Constellation).

What the Obama admisinstration did was cancel the replacement system – essentially pulling away the safety net after everyone had jumped. So while it was no shock to the NASA and contractor employees that the Shuttle program was ending (we all knew this since 2003) having NOTHING in the way of manned spaceflight afterwards WAS a shock – hence the thousands of layoffs in Houston and Florida.

There weren’t enough jobs in Constellation waiting for all those Shuttle workers, Dr. P, especially as delayed as the program was. We’d have seen thousands of layoffs, regardless. It would have been even worse had we continued with Griffin’s plan to put the ISS in the Pacific Ocean in 2016. Then, we really would have had no manned spaceflight.

That is not how it went down. The selection board consisted of NASA personnel and reported to the Administrator. It was not a White House panel. They assessed the merit of the proposals and the sites’ efficacy at reaching the wider public.

NASA has almost always been the beneficiary of strong bipartisan support…until now.

Lately NASA has been a political foot ball. Johnson Space Center is being punished for being in a red state as we see commercial crew operations sent to Florida. Alabama is similarly punished as their rocket is replaced by one in California or Virginia.

Where was this poll when George W. was canceling the Shuttle Program? Obama could have saved it, but that was a political decision to let it die.

I don’t agree with that characterization. Basing the commercial crew operations at KSC can just as easily be explained as sharing responsibility and helping keep KSC viable, since JSC retains ISS Program management and Advanced Exploration Systems.

Also, United Launch Alliance rockets are built in Alabama and they are just as competitive as the other commercial launch systems, especially given their flight heritage. In fact, someone from ULA joked at the New Space 2011 conference that they did such a good job proving to NASA that it would be easy to man-rate Atlas that they only got an unfunded Space Act Agreement.

By the time Obama was elected, so much of the Shuttle Program supply line was shut down or disbanded that it would have been extremely expensive to re-start production. While President Obama could have done that, there wouldn’t have been a whole lot of money left over to do anything else.

If we learn anything from the Shuttle Program, we should learn to stop eating our seed corn by spending so much money getting to orbit that we can’t afford to do anything worthwhile when we get there.

‘Commercial space’is another lie from the feds. It’s not commercial when the govt funds most of your development costs. The current administration won’t stop until all but a fraction of NASA’s budget is transferred to other ‘programs’ The problem is that the return on investment from NASA in terms of technology is orders of magnitude higher than where the socialist dictator is throwing our money.

And to the person above posting budget numbers, you failed to account for inflation and that a flat budget is a cut budget. Fancy accounting tricks … typical

If you would like the figures in constant dollars, that is easy enough to provide; all you had to do is go to the US Budget Office, where the information is kept. Given that you are too lazy to do so, here are the results:

Geez I still have my photos when it made its first trip to kennedy Space center and landed at Ellinton on top of a 747. Just a great era in American history. We set a goal, got the full public support and worked well within guidelines. “Where have all the flowers gone”?